As The Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer

“As the crow flies.”

This idiomatic expression meant nothing to me before I got hold of the book named the same by Jeffrey Archer.

Some odd 25 days of the journey with this book have been amazing, and it felt like I have aged with the characters in the book.

It felt like; I am also the part of the plot sitting right there on the bench across the road and witnessing the whole story all by myself, with my naked eyes.

And that’s the power of storytelling, and I think, Jeffrey Archer has justified it to the utmost.

To be very honest, I did not like the book as I was expecting something else when I first started reading the book.

As a matter of fact, I was looking for some hardcore motivation/inspiration, but I eventually found that the book has much more to reveal.

Though, it carries pure inspiration as it’s a story of a guy named “Charlie Trumper” building an empire from scratch.

In a nutshell, a journey from rags to riches.

After accompanying the journey of a man who achieved the greater good in his life through his hard work and the compassion for his profession, I was awestruck, and you won’t believe that I was having goosebumps as I was on the verge of ending the journey.

And it’s quite obvious that one would be disappointed if he/she doesn’t get what he/she is expecting.

Though I was proven wrong by Jeffrey Archer very soon and I fell in love with the way he writes.

Also as per me, a good writer is the one who knows exactly where to build up things and create the curiosity to turn one more page as to find out what’s in there on the next canvas?

And you know what, the urge to turn just one more page never stops until the last page of the book.

And don’t you think, in between all this, it’s the writer who ultimately wins.

What I Like:

Coming to what I liked the most in particular about this book is the concept of Jeffrey coming up with the account of every major character around the same plot.

This one style is new to me, and hence, I liked it the most.

My Favorite Lines:

“He’s come a long way since then,’ said Cathy, as she raised her hand to hail a taxi.
Oh, I don’t know,’ Becky replied. ‘Only about a couple of miles – as the crow flies.”

The justification of the title at the end is what took me away to a parallel universe.

The way, the titles sums up the journey of our leading man is an absolute beauty, and I believe that there could be no other title that would have justified the journey with such brilliance.

The Key Takeaways:

This key takeaway is one of my favorite section of anything.

The whole world has something to teach you, let alone the books.

So, here are the few key takeaways that I extracted out from Jeffrey Archer’s splendid work.

1) “You got a dream, you gotta protect it.”

– This movie dialogue fits in perfectly if I were to tell you the zest of the best learning from the book.

The thing which you have built from the scratch gave it your sweat and blood; you can’t let them go like anything.

You got to protect it like a mother does to her child.

2) Have a dream and make it happen.

The dream of Charlie to own the biggest barrow in the world came to existence just because Charlie took the matter into his hands.

He took massive actions and did the right things at the right time.

Ah, I just flashed in by an interesting distinction between a leader and a manger which might not fit well in the context and that goes as:

“A leader is the one who does the right things while a manager is the one who does the thing right.”

The point which I am trying to make is that Charlie was an excellent reader and once you have read the account of Charlie, you will figure out why I have quoted the definition of leader out here.

3) Stay grounded and humble.

Even though, Charlie was honored with the lordship and has the biggest barrow of the world to his credit, he still considered himself as a fruit and vegetable seller and eventually, ended up pursuing it even after his retirement.

This trait is what I consider and admire the most.

With this, I rest my case over here.

The void created after you are done reading a book is what I am feeling right now.

Though, not an avid reader once, I can certainly feel the craving of my mind and heart for a yet another journey, a yet another book with a compelling story and some characters to imbibe into the heart and soul for lifelong.

So, if you are aware of any such book, Kindly care to recommend, and I would be incredibly grateful to you.

Looking forward to hearing your views and do let me know if you have read this book.

Have I done justification while writing about the artwork of Jeffrey Archer?

6 Comments

Archit Sharma
on May 6, 2017 at 12:48 am

A great review,has the amalgamation of thoughts of the reader at the best.